page_title: Comox, British Columbia
section_title: Nineteenth century: settlement
hierarchical_section_title: Comox, British Columbia / History / Nineteenth century: settlement
caption_attribution_description: English: SS "Grappler", a packet steamer that plied the waters along the east coast of vancouver Island during the last half of the 19th century. The "grappler" brought the first load of settlers to the Comox Valley in 1862.
context_page_description: Comox is a town of about 15,000 people on the southern coast of the Comox Peninsula in the Georgia Strait on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The warm dry summers, mild winters, fertile soil and abundant sea life attracted First Nations thousands of years ago, who called the area kw'umuxws. When the area was opened for settlement in the mid-19th century, it quickly attracted farmers, a lumber industry and a fishing industry. For over fifty years, the village remained isolated from the outside world other than by ship until roads and a railway were built into the area during the First World War. The installation of an air force base near the village during the Second World War brought new prosperity to the area, and in recent years, Comox has become a popular tourist attraction due to its good fishing, local wildlife, year-round golf and proximity to the Mount Washington ski area, the Forbidden Plateau, and Strathcona Provincial Park. The town is also home to a Royal Canadian Air Force base CFB Comox, an airport for military and commercial airline use and the Sea Cadet training facility HMCS Quadra.
context_section_description: By the middle of the 19th century, European and American settlements had sprung up in the Vancouver area and on southern Vancouver Island. In 1837, the Hudson Bay Company steamship Beaver began to search the south and east coasts of Vancouver Island for suitable locations for new trading posts, and subsequently set up a post in the area, calling it "Komoux".
  HMS Constance, commanded by Captain Courtenay, was a frequent visitor to the area, and was one of the first ships to use Augusta Bay and a long sandy hook-shaped spit (now "the Goose Spit") for gunnery practice. In 1848, the river flowing through the Koumax valley was informally named the Courtenay River by British sailors after their captain. In 1857, Captain George Richards of HMS Plumper was tasked with undertaking a complete survey of the coastline of Vancouver Island, and was given authority to name local landmarks. When he arrived in the area, he confirmed the name as the Courtenay River.
  
  In 1853 Sir James Douglas, governor of Vancouver Island, took a journey up the coast of Vancouver Island aboard SS Beaver, and recognized the area's agricultural potential. In 1861, Lieutenant Richard Mayne of the Royal Navy visited the area and wrote of the rich agricultural prospects of the area, saying it had taken him a day and a half to walk over the land "through which a plough might be driven from end to end". That same year Governor Douglas issued a land and settlement proclamation for the Koumox Valley, intending to divert new settlers away from the Victoria area as well as from the newly discovered Cariboo gold fields. He offered land in the valley for $1 per acre and free transportation to the area.
  Although some unofficial settlers had arrived in previous years, the first government-approved settlers arrived in 1862 aboard HMS Grappler. Scottish immigrant James Robb, age 44, and his son William realized that the shoreline along the former K'ómoks fishing village and the Great Comox Midden was sheltered from the prevailing south east winds by the sandy hook of the Goose Spit, and would be the only place between the Courtenay River and the Spit suitable for landing supplies. Rather than claiming lots on the relatively flat and untreed "prairies" along the east side of the Courtenay River like the other settlers, Robb and his son preempted 262 acres of steep and heavily forested land along the shore of the bay, with the idea of clearing the land, building a dock and then selling town lots for the village that would inevitably spring up at the site.
  Two years later, Frederick Whymper, a member of the Vancouver Island Exploring Expedition, visited Robb's land, and wrote, "Here Mr. Robb with laudable faith in the country has preempted land though the site is principally bush: when he could have got good prairie land as he came among the first two years ago."
  By this time, as Robb had foreseen, supplies for the settlers had to be landed on his property, which became known as "The Landing", or formally "Port Augusta", named by the settlers after a member of the British royal family. James Robb by this time had also set up a prosperous farm, although he and his son spent a lot of time clearing land of timber in the hopes of selling it by the lot.
  Hudson's Bay Company and the British Admiralty promised the settlers that there would be regular mail service to the area via steamship, and Governor Douglas committed to building a road from Nanaimo. However, it quickly became clear that a wagon road would be too expensive; a bridle path with some bridges was built instead. Flooding and tree falls made maintenance of this path impractical, and the trail was soon abandoned. Supplies and mail continued to arrive by ship, but service was irregular, and delivery was measured in months rather than weeks.
  A narrow trail was soon built to connect The Landing with the nearby settlers on the Courtenay River, and by 1860, this had been widened enough that an ox cart could pass.
  In 1864, seams of high quality coal were discovered in nearby foothills, but it would be two decades before minin
caption: HMS Grappler, shown here in later service as a packet steamer. brought the first settlers to the Comox Valley in 1862
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